


Gone Fishin'

by mific



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alien Biology, Domestic, Fanfiction, Fishing, M/M, day in the life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 18:52:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12710865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mific/pseuds/mific
Summary: It's mandatory Sunday, and John's gone fishing.





	Gone Fishin'

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "Day in the Life" challenge over at [Story Works](https://story-works.dreamwidth.org/) on Dreamwidth. Because Atlantis is in the middle of the ocean, so there ought to be more boats and fishing.

John called by the mess hall and picked up two packs of turkey sandwiches and a couple of the disturbingly phallic drega-fruit from P4G-557. They tasted like a banana-mango cross so they were worth it, and there'd be no spectators watching him eat out on the pier.

Corporal Atkins caught his eye and brought over the container of cold cooked spaghetti noodles John had radioed through to order after he surfaced this morning, way later than usual as it was mandatory Sunday. He'd told Ronon yesterday he wouldn't be running this morning, so as to sleep in.

"Wraith don't take days off," Ronon had muttered darkly.

"Maybe they should," John had said. "Might make 'em less cranky. The long-range sensors are clear, buddy. Take a day for yourself. Chill out." Ronon had just smiled bleakly at that, and John hadn't known what to say; he'd just patted Ronon's arm in awkward sympathy and shrugged. It might take another seven years for Ronon to stop running, but some day. Some day.

Now, he glanced around the crowded room as he turned to go, and saw Rodney leaning forward in intense conversation with a table of irate marine biologists. Well, not exactly conversation; Rodney was in full rant, hands waving and fingers pointing and the scientists were equally animated. It was budgetary allocation week again, and tempers were fraying. John grinned and ducked out, heading for the transporters.

O'Neill had never thanked him after they'd been kicked off Atlantis by the Ancients and had gone back in the hijacked 'jumper to rescue Woolsey and O'Neill's butts. Not bringing John up on charges was a kind of thanks of course, but it had stung a little, even though O'Neill had done as much of the rescuing as Elizabeth, Carson and the team. Then a package had arrived for John on the next Daedalus run, a long, thin parcel with a cryptic note attached in O'Neill's handwriting. "Useful for mulling over command decisions. Try not to catch anything."

John stepped out of the transporter on the south-west pier where a series of wide shallow steps led down to the water instead of the usual sheer drop. This side of the city was more sheltered from the prevailing winds as well, but there were other, less isolated places people preferred for swimming so he wasn't usually disturbed here.

He settled himself in and took things out of the small day-pack he'd brought: a couple of old sleeping bags to cushion the hard metal of the deck, the food, his canteen, the container of spaghetti.

He'd brought no book, and even though he had his laptop he had no plans to play music. He preferred the sloshing and slapping of the waves, the faint cries of seabirds wheeling about a small flotilla of fishing boats from the Athosian settlement. The boats were about midway between the city and the mainland shore, probably out to net the annual migration of itli, schools of small silver eels with rotating fins that followed the north-south currents each spring to their breeding ground near an island the Athosians had named Tarko Ramman: Ancestors' Footprint.

He was glad the Athosians had taken to boats, their skilled carpenters readily picking up boatbuilding from Gavin Westfield, a Kiwi engineer who'd crewed in the America's cup in years past. He was from an Auckland-based boatbuilding family and was one of several members of the expedition, John included, with sailing experience. Better that the Athosians had more independence and weren’t reliant on the city's 'jumper schedule, and fresh or dried fish was as much a staple food for them all now as powdered eggs from Earth or game from the mainland forests. It gave the Athosians useful trade items to barter, both with the city's quartermaster and off-world as well, and Carson reckoned the more varied diet was healthier for everyone.

He unzipped the long, thin cover and slid out the collapsible fishing rod, assembling the three segments and checking the line wasn't snagged. He spun the reel—it ran freely; he oiled it whenever he cleaned his guns—then detached the hook from its cork (the original from the champagne bottle O'Neill had rolled through the wormhole after they first stepped through to Pegasus. Elizabeth had the bottle as a souvenir in her office, and John had kept the cork.) He attached a limp piece of spaghetti to the hook and lowered it into the water, playing it out for a few yards. No flycasting here—this wasn't a Highland stream. Carson could pretend he was trout fishing over on the mainland, but John preferred this—it reminded him of when he'd been a boy with a long stick and some string, happily dangling a bent pin in any pond or rock pool, undeterred that he never caught anything. O'Neill would have approved.

Slim chance of not catching anything here of course, and the pasta lure he'd discovered by accident increased his chances several-fold. The seas on this planet teemed with life; the biologists hadn't cataloged half of it yet, not even close.

John felt the line twitch and slid his laptop out of the daypack one-handed and opened it, turning on the webcam. He reeled in the line, bringing the creature up close enough to peer at, but not too close. He still hadn't gotten the ink out of his tee from that squirting squid-thing last month.

It was one of the weird things John called a spongebob, a tapering greenish-yellow oblong full of holes, with a round mouth at one end and a ridge of fins top and bottom. The marine biologists had plenty of them, but they liked John to catalog his catches so he dangled it in front of the webcam and took a picture. Then he freed the hook, grimacing at the rough, slimy feel of the thing's skin—the fish here hadn’t evolved scales but despite the shark-like feel, spongebobs were vegetarian and lived by rasping algae off the underside of the city. The biologists thought the Ancients might have genetically engineered them for that purpose.

He threw it back then baited his hook with another noodle and wiped his hands off on a small towel, sitting back and enjoying the day, scudding clouds and patches of sun, but not too hot yet. He'd put some of Rodney's sunblock on this morning, as he hated hats. His hair was unruly enough as it was, without hat-head.

Another tug on the line and he drew up a mass of wriggling red and purple frills. That was a new one, like a maroon colored puffer-fish with bulging eyes and a long eel-like tail. He filmed it and sent the video through to Dr. Martina Arecibo, head of Marine Biology, asking if she wanted him to sample it. She did, so he filled the pail he'd brought, cut the line with his knife—the biologists could get the hook out later once they'd figured out if it was poisonous to the touch—and dropped it into the pail of seawater where it writhed unhappily. Then he got out another hook—they were dirt cheap and he had them delivered on the Daedalus in bulk—and tied it to the line with a clinch knot.

He'd caught, photographed and discarded another spongebob when the transporter in the nearby tower whooshed open and steps thudded across the deck toward him.

"I hope to goodness you had the sense to put on sunblock," Rodney said, peering into the pail and making a face. "What in hell is that and why's Martina so excited about it? It looks like animated chopped liver."

"Hi, Mom," John said. "Yeah, I'm sunblocked up the wazoo—you want some?" He reeled in the line and set it aside, then found the tub of cream in his pack and tossed it to Rodney.

"In the nick of time," Rodney said, smearing sunblock on his face and hands. "My cumulative exposure to UV in this galaxy doesn't bear thinking about. What else did you catch apart from the liver-fish?"

"Couple of spongebobs," John said, as Rodney spread out one of the sleeping bags to sit on and investigated the food.

"Drega-fruit!" he exclaimed happily, peeling the skin back from one of them and sucking on it in the most suggestive manner possible. Rodney hummed happily around the long, flesh-colored fruit in his mouth then bit off the top third and chewed noisily. John's cock, which had taken a decided interest, wilted. Probably just as well.

"The purple thing's new, so the marine biologists are kind of excited," John said, baiting his line again because something cunning had taken the spaghetti and not gotten hooked last time. He lowered it into the water again as Rodney opened a pack of sandwiches and demolished it in short order.

"Is that the Athosian fishing fleet?" Rodney asked, peering out over the waves, shading his eyes with one hand.

"Yeah. Figured it must be itli season."

"Ooh, itli yakitori with tormack tempura!" Rodney sighed happily. Miko, Sergeant Nakamura and Warrant Officer Tenko always made a Japanese feast at the end of the itli run with plates of sushi and sashimi, yakitori and tempura. Tenko might even have gotten his recipe for sake right this year as well—Lorne said his experiments had been promising.

John's line went taut and he raised it carefully. "Huh," Rodney said. "Is that new as well?"

It was one of the blue-green squid fishes, tentacles at one end and a finned tail at the other. John debated aiming it at Rodney but Rodney had his favorite soft blue tee on and he didn't want to ruin it. "Nah, seen these before. Watch out, they squirt ink. Messed up my Dolly Parton tee last month."

"Just as well," Rodney said, edging nervously back and watching as John maneuvered the thing so it was pointing at the water, triggered the squirt reflex then freed the hook, snapping its photo before throwing it back. "It was disconcerting seeing 'Dolly' splashed all across your chest. Made me think of that cloned sheep."

"Well, you'll be glad to hear it just says 'Doll' now, with a big blue stain at the end."

"Yeah, that's not really any less disconcerting," Rodney said, making himself a nest in his sleeping bag and using John's thigh as a pillow. "Wake me in half an hour. I need to run some simulations."

"Aye aye, cap'n," John said, tipping Rodney a mock salute. He had no intention of waking him any time soon. Rodney had been running himself ragged on the power grid simulations and he needed the sleep. It was one reason John came out here, just another unacknowledged thing they did together each week, John fishing while Rodney napped.

Across the waves in the distance he heard the Athosians calling from boat to boat, coordinating their nets. The sun came out from behind a bank of clouds and John shut his eyes, breathing in the salt tang, a stronger edge of ozone here than he remembered from Earth. The line tightened again and he reeled in another spongebob. When he threw it back, one of the big alien seabirds dived down and intercepted it, swooping away on pale leathery-gray pterodactyl wings with the luckless fish clamped in its bill.

Beside John, Rodney stirred and made a snuffling noise into the denim of his thigh. John decided O'Neill had the right idea and didn't bait the hook this time, lowering his line into the top few inches of the waves where he was unlikely catch anything. He set the rod aside and anchored it with the water-filled pail whose occupant circled, rippling disconsolately.

John settled back against the step, resting his left hand on Rodney's shoulder, the breeze ruffling his hair, spring sun warm on his face.

He closed his eyes.

 

 

the end


End file.
